Chalcedony pressed herself against the cold, hard rock. Snow rubbed into her feathers. It melted quickly against her warm body, wetting some if her plumage and fur. She watched her prey intently. It was a mountain goat. Sick and scrawny, the young creature had probably gotten lost or been abandoned by its group. A small twinge of bitterness welled inside of Chalcedony. Chal, as she had once been called. Chal, as she had been called by the ones who left her in the storm of cold and white...

The griffin shook her head. She couldn't think about her life right how. Hunger was all that fueled her. If she didn't get food, she wouldn't survive through the winter. Concentrate. Concentrate. The young goat looked up suddenly. Chal glanced at her rear end. Her tail! She cursed herself as many times as she could when she saw it sticking up behind her, waving with the wind.

"Shreeeeeee!"

A scream too loud for her body was flung from her beak. She half-leaped, half-flew forward from her hiding spot behind the ridge. Her gray form swooped over white land as her prey fled. Black wing-tips flashing, Chal dipped low through the air. There as a loud thud as body collided with body and the two connected with the snow. Wet and warm soaked into Chal's black paws, and she felt the tense muscles of the creature below her. So young, so unknowing, so desperate for just one more chance at survival...

Chal's beak was clenched. She had run out of pity the day the hunger pangs struck. She had run out of regret for any action that benefitted her the day she was left behind by her own parents. With two swipes of her curved and deadly talons, the goat was dispatched, and Chal had her meal for the day.

The wind howled on and on as the female griffin landed clumsily near a small cave. Her belly bulged and her wings flapped slowly. She could not risk being slowed by extra weight in the beginning of a storm, so the rest of the goat's carcass had been left to the ice and whatever animal was fortunate enough to stumble upon it.

If there are any animals left in this barren disaster, Chal thought bitterly as she crawled into the small cave (it was more like a hole). It was damp and so lacking in space that she had to duck her head very low to stand inside of it. This did not bother her. She preferred to sit through a long blizzard like this.

The storm had started shortly after she had taken flight. It was winter in the Ailsen mountains, Chal's only home, and heavy snowfall was something to be expected. That didn't mean Chal had to like it. The years of solitude had turned her as cold as the land around her and as stubborn as permafrost. Not that there was any of that here. Chalcedony rarely even saw the soil for the snow that covered the high elevations she resided in.

Ailsen was a word Chal had never heard. She knew nothing of the world she lived in but the ice and the cold and the loneliness.

Chal closed her eyes. Bored and not eager to sleep, she began to preen. Her feathers were silvery and gray, blending perfectly with the fur of her hindquarters. She had dark paws and black facial markings forming something like a bandit mask on her narrow, eagle-like face. She could be called beautiful in the way any predator who has hunted since they could fly is. Her form was slim and well-muscled, though she could become quite thin in the coldest months. Her wings were broad and gray with black tips that matched her paws, and her tail was long and curled with a plume of feathers at the end, perfect for aiding her wings to steer her large body in the sky. Yes, a beautiful and deadly predator any griffin is.

But Chal had her doubts. Was a griffin deadly enough? How many years would a lone creature of her kind make it through without a flock?

Don't think about that...don't think about that...don't think about that...don't...think...about...that...

Chal was reluctant to give in. She fought hard against the darkness, but the lull of her repeated thoughts eased her body into sleep. Chal slumped against the ground and let herself become silent as still, helpless as dreams took over, sleeping into the falling snow.

"I'm sorry."

The young chick let out a cry like no other it had ever made. She could not understand. She could not know what was happening to her, that her parents would never come back. All she knew was that her mother and father had both left her. This was not right. Only one of them should be out hunting. One of them was always suppose to stay...

The male griffin who was her father said another apology. His dark gray feathers were black in the night, blending with the shadows. The black female with white paws, her mother, cast her a look of pain. "Chalcedony...Chalcedony..."

Chalcendony stared at them with fear. What could be happening? Why were her parents so sad all of a sudden? Why were they turning away from her, spreading their wings in harmony? Why were the only two griffins she had ever loved, loved more than the world she'd broken the shell of her egg to get to, leaving? Why were they spreading their wings, taking off into the night, leaving behind the chick who loved them so dearly?

Chalcedony did not know. Chalcedony, as she had been called by the ones who left her. Chalcedony, as she would be called by no one but herself for the next twenty years.

Time is such a delicate thing in the world of dreams, Chalcedony had once thought over the course of her life. How simple and bendable it could be. How horribly, horribly recallable could the dreams be. The memories.

A wistful, misty look crossed the eyes of the adolescent griffin. She pressed herself against the ground, just as she would eleven years from this moment. Her tail flipped excitedly across the snow behind her. This was the moment she had dreamed of since she was a cub. Well, maybe not exactly. In her dreams, her parents were returning. That was too good to be true, Chalcedony had decided as she shed her coat for a sooty gray teenager's. But this...this could compare.

Griffins!

Feathery and furry, the large bodies of hunters just like her bustled about below the ridge. White, black, brown, orange, yellow, more colors than Chal had known her species could come in. All here. They seemed so friendly to one another. Chal could hear their soft chirps, their affectionate trills as they ate from a half-devoured carcass or strolled around with others.

Chal had never come across an actual flock of griffins before. The noises-noises just like the ones Chal made-had been almost startling at first. Nine years. Nine years since she had last heard a voice like hers. She was hungry, almost, for companionship. Griffins like Chal were meant to live in flocks or families. The fellowship Chal had been deprived of her whole life could be right in front of her!

Chal had watched them for almost an entire day. Since the red sky, dawn, there had been several close calls, but Chal had managed to avoid being seen. How could one meet a flock? How could one be sure they would welcome her? Doubts filled her mind. Could she trust the instincts telling her to introduce herself, beg for a place among them?

"What?" she murmured to herself. What to do?

A large white male turned. Chal's blood turned as cold as the icy winds. It pumped in and out of her heart, freezing her entire body.

She'd just been given away.

The white male griffin spread his wings wide. He wheeled in her direction and let out a scream that forced her into action.

Chal spun around. She was not sure what to do to show them she meant no harm. Cowering against the snow, she observed about five more griffins advance on her. The rest of the flock-maybe twenty others-watched her. Their eyes gleamed with suspicion and anger. What had she done? Why were the white male and the yellow female moving in on Chal, their eyes shining with malice?

"Shreeeeeee!"

Chal shrieked and stumbled backwards. The griffins, who had been slowly stalking toward her moments before, unfurled their wings and let out cries of rage. The white male leaped. His wings spread out wide above him. His chestnut eyes narrowed.

And Chal flew. This was how she discovered how fast she could fly, for she had never flapped her wings so hard, leaped so high to get into the air. More screams forced their way out of her. The flock griffins were not giving in. Now most of them were in the air. They were gaining on her...She whipped her head around and kept flying.

"EEEEEEEEEEIIIIIII!"

Chal felt sharp blades slam into her midsection. She cried out in surprise and pain. Her body twisted in the air, dropping several feet as her wings flailed wildly. Her left eye caught a streak of light gold hanging onto her back. The yellow hen. Talons dug into the flesh near her wings. Half a foot away from there and her right wing would have failed her. NO! Chal thought desperately.

She soon found out the yellow hen was a skilled fighter. She slammed her hind paws into Chal's back. Unable to right herself and the attacker, Chal's left wing gave out and she spiraled toward the ground. Suddenly, the flock-hen broke away from her. The gray griffin let out a strangled noise and fluttered higher into the air.

WHAM! Chal felt as if her lungs had collapsed. A dark brown male griffin slammed hard into Chal, felling her instantly. Her head ducking under her tail as she tumbled.

WHAM! There was another impact as Chal hit the ground on her side. The brown male swooped over her, unharmed except for a few bruises. Darkness filled the upper half of her vision. With her head still fuzzy from the fall, she was unable to tell whether it was her fading or the wings of the griffins flying over her. Wingbeats met her sensitive ears. A pang of pain hit her from one of her wings. It would end soon.

A hard blow on the base of her wing shocked the senses back into her limp body. Fight. The instinct came straight from her still frozen heart. That was the way a creature as powerful as a griffin must go down. Fighting until the blood clouded their vision and there was no light. Chal was powered by this magical sense of courage. It was her fault she was here anyway.

"AEEIIIIIK!" A blue gray griffin flew out of sight as Chal sliced her claws across the female's face. Two more griffins slashed their beaks into her. Chal's tail whipped wildly. More pain hit as she completed the action. The bone was shattered.

Her paws connected with two attackers' heads. They backed away but didn't seem too injured. An inexperienced fighter, Chal couldn't do much damage to a pack of griffins that outnumbered her by nine.

Then...light. Chal's pieces of a heart leapt when she saw the griffins were grouped to her left. She could fly away. She could escape. All she had to do was lift off from the ground.

Talons hit the back of her legs hard. Her back half stumbled, forcing the bird-ish front down with it. Despair filled her screeches of pain, but Chal did not give in yet. Her wings seemed able to fly. She bunched up her feline hindquarters. Then she looked down, her biggest mistake. Blood raced down the scales of her legs. Blood, salty and red. Identical to the blood she had feasted on only four days before when she made a kill. Now it was coming from her. Chal began to feel herself grow weaker.

Chal's wings seemed to catch the air by themselves. She could not think as she entered the sky's domain. All she saw was the blood. The blood of her enemies, the blood that poured from herself. It was not right; it couldn't be. Screams filled the sky behind her. Her wings skipped a beat and she fell for a moment. Chal couldn't turn. She couldn't face her own kind.

Chal escaped into the blue of midday. Yet to her it was not the beautiful color of day; it was the red sky, the sky of the tears in her skin her own species had made in their rage for her trespass on their land.

The angry screams faded behind her, and Chal let her dream of griffins disappear with them.

Chal awoke to silence. The snow had ceased its falling and the storm had died while she slept.

She ran a clawed foot across her stomach, the exact place the long white scar had stayed for many years before it left with time. The visible signs of the attack had long since faded from her body. The bitterness that ruled her thoughts had not.